Brain rot

It might well be as dangerous as the COVID-19 pandemic, except this one’s a slow-burn type of endemic. The symptoms linger before worsening and, before we know it, we’ve spiraled down to the point of no return.

It’s called brain rot, and kudos to Oxford University Press for putting the spotlight on what our online universe has become – and how we’ve become witting or unwitting participants – and for some, enablers – in this absurd reality of our age.

Brain rot is Oxford’s 2024 Word of the Year. We can only let out a heavy sigh as we feel despair over how chronically online life has turned out.

It’s alarming, to say the least.

The Philippines, touted as the social media capital of the world with internet users comprising 73.4 percent of the population, might well be Patient Zero. I dread to imagine the level of ignorance and stupidity that will descend upon this country a few years from now. As it is now, we already have a grave crisis in education.

Results of the 2022 Program for International Student Assessment, which covered 690,000 students from 81 countries, showed the Philippines’ standing in three subjects – reading, math and science – “were about the same” as in 2018.

In 2018, the country scored the lowest in reading (340) and second lowest in math (353) and science (357). For 2022, the country scored 347 in reading, 355 in math and 356 in science. (PIDS, June 2024).

What is brain rot?

According to Oxford, “brain rot” is defined as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging. Also: something characterized as likely to lead to such deterioration.”

Oxford said the term gained new prominence this year to capture concerns about the impact of consuming excessive amounts of low-quality online content, especially on social media.

Here in our nation of 120 million, there is surely no lack of low-quality online content. In fact, quite a number of content creators themselves can’t even speak straight English or Tagalog.

The spellings in their quote cards are as scary as horror stories. Just click a few TikTok or YouTube videos, and you will understand what I’m talking about.

Walden

Actually, brain rot is not something new.

As Oxford pointed out, the first recorded use of “brain rot” was found in 1854 in Henry David Thoreau’s book Walden, which reports his experiences of living a simple lifestyle in the natural world.

“As part of his conclusions, Thoreau criticizes society’s tendency to devalue complex ideas, or those that can be interpreted in multiple ways, in favor of simple ones, and sees this as indicative of a general decline in mental and intellectual effort: ‘While England endeavors to cure the potato rot, will not any endeavour to cure the brain-rot – which prevails so much more widely and fatally?’”

In this digital age, however, the term has taken on new significance, especially over the past 12 months.

“Initially gaining traction on social media platforms – particularly on TikTok among Gen Z and Gen Alpha communities – ‘brain rot’ is now seeing more widespread use, such as in mainstream journalism, amidst societal concerns about the negative impact of over-consuming online content.”

Indeed, brain rot is both the cause and effect of this low-quality and low-value content online.

This is alarming, really, and our policymakers, educators and today’s generation of parents need to do something about this.

What to do then?

Our education authorities need to arrest this deterioration. Schools and universities need to be proactive by introducing to their students equally interesting pursuits offline – history, culture, music, theater and sports. Or perhaps, mind-bending stories and poetry. Parents must encourage their children to enjoy what the real world has to offer outside smartphones and tablets.

Otherwise, our Filipino youth’s intellectual capacity and yearning for higher things in life, including arts, culture and humanities, will slide into depths of despair.

Our children’s capacity to think diminishes as social media reduces one’s attention span and feeds them with such low-quality content.

This is perhaps the reason Australia has banned social media for those below 16 years old.

It’s not to say that social media has no benefits, but the question we should be asking is: how do we address its dangers?

Brain rot doesn’t hurt like a virus, but it is a disease that eats into our brains like a parasite. It is taking up valuable space in our minds.

Shallow content

These days, content creators and self-proclaimed influencers feed us with useless and shallow content. And yet, and yet, we find ourselves tuning in for more, watching the same old silly reels.

And that’s actually what’s even more dangerous and scary. Brain rot leaves us craving for more. As our brains rot, our appreciation for knowledge fades too. In short, rotting brains crave more garbage and stup#dity.

It is dull and numbing, and as we move along in this fast turning world with rotting brains, we might soon forget what it means to be alive.

Hopefully, we can arrest this problem before it arrests us.

For now, we might find consolation in the fact that, as The Atlantic pointed out, whatever feeling we are dealing with is a version of what Thoreau dealt with 170 years ago.

“Only slightly more stupid.”

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Email: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @eyesgonzales. Column archives at EyesWideOpen on FB.